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When we commented that Blizzard didn’t need to make larger design changes to maintain the player-base in World of Warcraft (WoW) for the short-term, we all but tuned out the latest design points that have hit the web from Warhammer: Age of Reckoning (WAR). That’s because last we checked, WAR’s development was progressing slowly, or at least, news of WAR’s development was progressing slowly. As it stands, however, WAR is making some rather interesting changes to class gameplay from the beast that is WoW, and it’s making us rather excited to see what WAR’s release candidate will look like.

WAR’s class implementation will be a primary factor in what determines whether people decide WAR is just another WoW clone, or whether they will look at WAR as truly evolutionary for the genre. This is important, because WAR has key similarities to WoW already, and as with Age of Conan, WAR’s release, mediocre or not, should easily be able to nab one million subscribers. The thing is, gameplay beyond what WoW offers (that doesn’t consist merely of a couple tweaks here and there), are what will allow WAR to quickly compete with WoW in the western world. From the announced design notes we’ll comment on, we firmly believe that WAR should be able to reach 2.5 million subscribers by first quarter of 2009, meaning the game’s availability this holiday season will be key. Fortunately, it looks as though Mythic is on schedule.

So what design notes are we talking about?

• Squiq Herder / White Lion: These are WAR’s answer to WoW’s Hunter class, with a key difference being that WAR is making the “melee Hunter” a reality. Both the Squiq Herder and White Lion will have the ability to emulate the Hunter as far as having pets that tank, but overall, the class is DPS-oriented, whereas the Hunter forgoes DPS as utility increases. Furthermore, the Squig Herder has situational pets that don’t require a trip to the stables, ala WoW’s Warlock, while the White Lion seems to have a pet that is flexible and utilitarian (it can even throw enemies at the White Lion to prevent them from staying at range). For WoW players who loved the Hunter but hated the pet, WAR has the Shadow Warrior class.
• Combos: While WoW’s Rogue class is built around the idea of building up “combo points” before dropping a “finishing” move onto an enemy, WAR has taken the combo idea further. Both the Black Orc and Swordmaster classes are based around “building” a sequence of attacks, while Witch Hunters and Witch Elves are more like Rogues in WoW.
• Off-tanking: One of the chief tanking problems in WoW is that a given group only needs one tank, and off-tanks are required only when things go bad. WAR fixes the tanking problem by allowing off-tanks to buff the tanking ability of the main tank in a group. Furthermore, the rage mechanic from WoW, called “grudge” in WAR, allows tanks to generate power not only from taking damage, but from their allies taking damage. In other words, even off-tanks should be able to build rage/grudge in WAR, despite not being the primary focus of an enemy’s attack.
• DPS healers: While WAR offers more “pure” healers like the Rune Priest and Zealot, it also offers classes who build up the potential for greater heals by first dealing damage, like the Warrior Priest and Disciple of Khaine. Then there’s classes like the High Elf Archmage and the Goblin Shaman, who can opt to do the same thing in reverse: build up their damage potential by first focusing on healing. Interestingly, we proposed class functionality for WoW’s Shaman class that very much mimics WAR’s Goblin Shaman concept a long time ago.
• Defensive classes: Finally, WAR offers two classes built around defense, by giving players Dwarven Engineers and the Chaos Magus. The former acts like Engineers from Team Fortress, who can build defensive “sentries” to hold tactical points on the battlefield. Similarly, the Chaos Magus summons demons that are restricted in their field of movement, to likewise defend a given area.

With these class designs, along with public quests (like drop-in raid instances), WAR looks to be shaping up nicely. I fact, with more of an emphasis on PvE than initially expected, WAR looks like it will appeal to a pretty large MMOG audience. We’re still rather annoyed that no OS X version has been announced, but if WAR lives up to the hype, it may very well convince us to finally get Boot Camp loaded.

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